Review: Descendants

I was away for the bank holiday and now back to posting! What have I missed? I can honestly say you guys have missed nothing *lol*. Back at work which means that no extra reading time for me but managed to get it finished.

I have been reading Descendants by Rae Else. This story follows a subject that hasn’t been used very much. The gorgons and Medusa. I can only confirm one other series like it that I know of. Its a good thing and means I have something to compare it to but I wont forget that they are very different.

Summery of Descendants:

El, a seventeen-year-old has inherited an ancient and deadly power. She loses control of it, causing a horrific accident, and becomes the prey of a secret organisation, known as the Order.

Forced from her family and home, she hides in plain sight amidst the crowds of London, and is thrust into a world she never knew existed; one full of arete: beings with extraordinary powers like hers.

Arete are beings that can trace their lineage and powers from ancient Greece. They do not claim their inheritance comes from the gods, rather legend says they are descended from cursed beings, such as Medusa.

At the heart of their world is the kerykeion, the symbol that protects them from the humans and the humans from them. El is trapped between two factions, one that has built an empire around the kerykeion and another that is determined to bring it down.

As she is drawn deeper into the conflict, the only way to find the truth is to take matters into her own hands, and the line between friend and foe becomes dangerously blurred.

I liked the book and can’t wait for the next one. The only problem that I have with the book is that there were several areas when I did not know where I was. I would get into the flow of reading and it would just stop. I could handle one or two of those moments but not when they keep happening.

One of the moments is towards the end when the car flips and ends at the bottom of a hill. Now I had no idea that there was a hill until it was mentioned later and everyone had run back up it. This lead me to rereading the whole part again to be just as confused as before.

When I was originally taught about “story writing” they would always tell you of “Show not Tell”. I love this. When an author has such a grasp on the story that they can show you everything you need to see without actually writing one descriptive word.

Don’t get me wrong, they story was great and with a little more coxing the plot will really shine thorough. I just feel it needed a little bit more work to smooth out the bumps. Something else that bothered me a little bit was how detached El was from her family. I can understand that she had been lied to and hurt but you wouldn’t just stop caring if they were killed. I felt that I wasn’t attached to the characters that much either.

For all the effort and plot I felt the book could be a very catching story however with the detachment and missing moments I feel that the book need 3 stars.